


Monsters in the Mirror

by fojee



Category: I Remember You - Fandom, Korean Drama, 너를 기억해 | Hello Monster
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Still OT3?, is an understatement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-27 16:27:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5055712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fojee/pseuds/fojee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I think my son is a monster. </p><p>What if his father was right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> To all the Min fans out there, I am deeply sorry.

 

He comes home to his worst nightmare. 

His wife lay lifeless on the living room floor. There is blood spatter everywhere. On the hyacinths on the table, and over the toys on the shelf. All over the floor are small, red footprints. Against one wall leans a dead man holding a gun in his lax fingers. His own gun is on the floor of his study, one bullet missing in the chamber.

And his son is looking up at him with wide eyes.

After the police had gone through everything, after they've taken his wife's body away, along with the piece of trash who killed her, Professor Lee Joon Min sits down with his son and asks him what happened in a voice as gentle as he could muster.

"The bad man was there, but hyung protected me. When I grow up, I want to be just like hyung!"

Lee Joong Min looks down at his son in bewilderment. _But you don't..._

Then he realizes what it means. Horror blooms on his face.

\---

Hyeon looks up from where he is burying the dog. "It was already dead when I found it," he tells his father earnestly. He isn't lying. 

But his father looks back at him with hooded eyes.

\---

"Something is worrying you," Lee Joon Young says to the other man. "Something to do with your family, perhaps?"

Professor Lee Joong Min shuts off the recorder. "I think we're done here. I'll see you next week."

\---

Hyeon looks through the scattered pictures of psychopaths on his father's desk. "They look normal."

"Evil is hidden inside normal people," his father says heavily. "At times the most cruel people can wear the face of an angel." He peers into his son's face.

"Hyeon-ah, I want you to be more like other kids your age."

Hyeon gives him a fond look of exasperation. It makes him look older than he is. "Then I won't dress Min-ah and take him or pick him up from Kindergarten. Then I'll stop paying the utility bills and I'll stop making your coffee. I'll just play with robots all day."

Professor Lee fakes a laugh and sips the coffee to hide his shaking hands. "Oh, but my son's the best barista!"

Later on, in the privacy of his office, he sobs into his hands.

\---

Hyeon brings his father's bag to the station. The detectives there all tease him about being a genius. He leaves them counting the matches on the table.

He walks down the stairs and into a room where he meets a young man.

"I know you. My appa studies people like you. How did you become this kind of person?"

"And what kind of person am I?"

Hyeon peers into the man's face. "Someone who's different from others."

Lee Joon Young smiles and tells him about how souls are made. Then he leans forward. "You're someone different from others, too. Tell me, does your father trust you? I'm curious what kind of adult you'll become. I want to see." He removes the handcuffs around his wrists and lays out one hand in front of Lee Hyeon. "Should I tell you a secret between the two of us?"

Hyeon places his hand on the other man's. His skin is cool to his touch. But his gaze is warm. Hyeon feels a flutter in his chest.

\---

Professor Lee hurries down to the interview room, and for a second stops at the door. He can see his son and that man smile at each other, each one holding a finger to their lips. He feels a chill run down his spine.

When he confronts Lee Joon Young, the man laughs at him. "Your thoughts are right. Would he become a monster like me? Or maybe he already is one."

\---

There are two sketchbooks on the table. He flips through them both, bottom lip caught in his teeth. 

His son walks into the room. 

"Did you draw these?" He shows him the childish art that features decapitated heads and guns and blood.

Min shakes his head. "Hyung did. But don't tell hyung I told you."

Professor Lee tries to understand.

"Does your hyung scare you?"

"Ani, but appa, don't trust hyung."

His heart breaks a little more.

\---

He talks to a colleague, hoping for a second opinion. 

"The memory loss and separation anxiety is normal after such a trauma."

Professor Lee shakes his head. "There are things you don't know." 

His friend raises his eyebrows. "Did you find any other unusual symptoms?"

For a second, the professor thinks of telling him everything. But his instinct is to keep silent. To protect his son. "No, maybe you're right. It might just be an occupational hazard to overreact to these things."

\---

_I think my son is a monster._

\---

"From now on, you will stay here. People will think I've sent you to study abroad, but I'll teach you here instead. I will protect you from the world, and protect the world from..."

He breaks off, flustered. "You'll do your studies with me. How the world is, and how normal people live their lives... we'll study all of that together."

Hyeon starts to cry. "Why didn't you ask me what I talked about with that man? You should have asked me before you called me a monster."

But his father is adamant, and eventually Hyeon does as he's told. 

That little room soon becomes his world. He forces himself to listen to his father's words and ignore the knocks on the door. Min is calling for him. Min needs him. But right now, there's nothing he can do but wait.

For a man to keep his promise.

\---

One night Lee Joon Young escapes from prison, and shows up in his house. He hears them through the walls. Then the door opens and he steps out.

He doesn't remember what Lee Joon Young tells him. His memories of that time somehow fractures, and all he has left are shards, glinting sharply in the darkness.

The only thing he remembers--on that night, his father dies. And Min disappears.

\---

For years, Hyeon lives with the guilt. He buries himself in his studies, and goes abroad as soon as he is of age. It is easier there. The foreign words on his tongue becomes another barrier to place between the world and himself. He doesn't make friends, though he collects favors from people who could be of use.

Then eight years after he moves to America, he accepts an invitation to do a lecture in Korea in a symposium about theories on Korean society.

Sometime after several rounds of drinks with his fellow lecturers, he blacks out. And wakes up two days later in his hotel room, dressed only in a white bathrobe. For some reason, he has paint under his nails.

_Strange dreams._

For the next few years, that's how it goes. There's something about being back home that triggers it. Maybe the memories are trying to escape the locked box inside his head. 

On one of his trips home, he blacks out before the plane even lands, and only comes back to himself while sitting at the airport terminal, boarding pass in his hand. He has to check the date and time to figure out that he's in Korea, waiting for the plane back to New York, and fifteen days has passed without his knowledge. It scares the crap out of him.

Finally, Hyeon vows to himself never to go back.

Except that one day mere weeks after the Korean version of his book, "The Memory of a Murderer" is released, he receives an e-mail. It contains pictures of a crime scene. On one of them, there's a painting hanging on the wall. A two-headed man reflected in a mirror. Something in him recognizes it. _Min._

He books the next flight home.

\---

He studies the killer on the monitor. He's too old to be Min. Later, he slips into the room and puts on a show. It works; he goads the man into confessing. And yet... He claims to know nothing about the painting. Someone else placed it there. Either it's Min himself or it's someone who knows Min, and wants Hyeon to come back. Could it be Lee Joon Young?

The whole team is happy to get a confession, but Hyeon bursts their bubble. "He's well-connected. He'll either get acquitted, or they'll do an insanity plea and install him in a cushy private institution. Even if you find other evidence, if his lawyer is good enough, he could still get away with it."

Detective Cha Ji An crosses her arms. "So what do you suggest we do?"

"First secure your witness. Make sure she can present herself as a convincing victim to a jury. Go through the past crimes. He's not as smart as he thinks so he'll have made some errors there. Then, find the drugs and trace their source. He could very well be smuggling them in from China. Any extra charge can only help. They might even be willing to prosecute, so if he's acquitted here, just extradite him there. Well, do you need me to hold your hand, too?" 

Detective Son scoffs. "We were going to do that anyway."

"Not the extradition," Director Hyun Ji Soo adds. "That requires a bit of political wrangling."

"But you can use it as a threat," Hyeon counters. "And if they pursue charges against him as a smuggler, he'll be on the travellers' watch lists and will find it hard to flee the country. You'll have another crack at him."

The team leader, Kang Eun-Hyuk, interrupts. "Well, we just want to thank you for your cooperation Professor David Lee. I was thinking that we could hire you to be our permanent consultant. The compensation will be small, though..."

"No thanks," Hyeon says. "But you can come to me if you have other cases. If it's interesting, I will help free of charge. Don't send her, though. Her face irritates me." He points at Cha Ji An, whose mouth drops open in chagrin.

\---

He finds the tapes on a shelf and listens to them in the basement. Towards the end of one tape, Lee Joon Young's voice leaps out to him. "By the time you are listening to this, I might already be by your side."

Hyeon can't tell if what he's feeling is excitement or fear.

\---

He meets his next-door neighbor soon after, while walking around the grounds, when the man loses control over his hose. Hyeon closes his eyes when the spray of water hits him on the face.

Later, backs turned to each other, they change their shirts. Turning his back on a stranger, after the week he's had, is not an easy thing, and there's a feeling under his breastbone that he recognizes as vulnerability. 

So he senses it, the presence hovering near his neck. And turns around to see the doctor with a scalpel in his hand.

"Ah, I was just going to cut..." And the man holds up the tag at the back of the shirt. 

Hyeon lets him do it, but he has to use everything in his power not to shiver.

Over tea, they talk about inconsequential things. "I'm a lonely person," the doctor says with a soft smile on his face. 

_Are you, really?_ Hyeon thinks. The man's demeanor is open, and the loneliness could account for the over-eager invitation extended to him, but the doctor also exudes an air of competence, of a diamond-hard self-confidence beneath the bumbling exterior. The kind of man who doesn't need other people.

Dr. Lee Joon Ho. Someone that warrants a closer look.

\---

He takes his foster mother out to dinner that night. She's smiling and making jokes, and he plays along. He's used to the routine, used to playing the part of dutiful son for her, while she acts as the loving mother that she never got to be. They have both improved with time, and Hyeon thinks that Hyun Ji Soo half-believes the lies that fall out of her mouth.

"Why did you come home in the middle of the semester?" She finally asks him, her unease causing the mask to slip for a moment. "Is there something wrong?"

He gives her a pat answer and redirects the conversation. "Could you give me the file on Min and my father? I thought I might as well check it out while I'm in town."

Hyun Ji Soo looks at him in surprise, and then her expression shifts to troubled and disturbed. She lies about it. "There isn't one."

Hyeon nods, not letting his thoughts show on his face. His foster mother tries to return to the lighthearted banter from before, but her effort comes to naught. Hyeon grabs the bill and pays for it, and leaves her with a peck on her cheek. 

She watches him walk away, her forehead scrunched up and her lips pursed.


	2. Chapter 2

Somehow, Lee Hyeon finds himself embroiled in another case, this time the murder of an old detective who had known him years ago. The man just calls him up and starts talking about following Lee Joon Young's trail, and promises to give Hyeon whatever he's found.

But when Hyeon arrives at his apartment, the detective is already seconds away from death, lying in a pool of his own blood. And then the perpetrator jumps out from his hiding place, hitting the lights and disorienting him for a moment. In the struggle, the man manages to stab Hyeon in the back before he escapes out through the balcony.

Hyeon thinks about staying and talking with the cops, but the mere thought makes him inexplicably ill, so he leaves. He leaves knowing his fingerprints and maybe even his blood will be all over the crime scene. 

He thinks about going to Detective Cha's place, maybe imposing on her as a little payback for her snooping into his life. But she might well be working the case, and if she were, she'd insist on bringing him in to the station. Ultimately, going to her place would be the same as staying. So for lack of other options, he heads home. 

And then he hits upon another idea.

\---

Dr. Lee Joon Ho is just coming home himself after a long shift. He's done the autopsy of former Detective Yang, though there wasn't much to add to his preliminary findings except for the particulars of the murder weapon. Stabbings are boring.

He runs a hand through his hair and dreams of a long shower. But at his door, he stops, ear cocked. The house isn't empty. He slides his left hand in his pocket where he keeps a spare scalpel as a good luck charm, while he slides in the key and turns the doorknob.

The television is on in the living room, and so are the lights. Whoever it is, they're not bothering to hide. Then he takes a deep breath, and the tension seeps out of his body. He knows who it is. Lee Hyeon.

"Is there any reason you couldn't wait for an invitation?" He asks lightly when he walks in.

Hyeon looks away from the screen and gives him a sly smile. "I felt lonely all of a sudden and remembered you. I hope you don't mind." Joon Ho recognizes the shirt he is wearing as having come from his own closet. He takes a deep breath again and recognizes the scent in the air.

"Are you injured?" He asks mildly.

Hyeon tilts his head. "Why? Will you nurse me back to health?"

The doctor laughs. "My bedside manners are rusty. I work with the dead and they prefer straightforward questions, you know."

"Do they?" Hyeon stands up and turns around. "The bleeding has stopped, I think. I'll pay you for the shirt. Again," he adds with a chuckle.

Joon Ho peers at the splotch of red low on Hyeon's back. "Wait here. I'll get the first aid kit."

"There's no hurry. Go wash up first," Hyeon says.

"Why? Do I smell?" Joon Ho asks, sniffing himself. 

Hyeon wrinkles his nose and laughs. "No, you just look like you need it."

Joon Ho catches his eye and unfastens the first couple of buttons on his shirt. "Alright. Just make yourself even more comfortable, Lee Hyeon. I'll be right back."

Hyeon clears his throat once, feeling the heat bloom on his cheeks.

By the time he regains his composure, the doctor is back. And baring his wound to him, Hyeon is all-too aware of the man standing behind him, smelling dangerously of musk and spice.   
The doctor cleans the stab wound and then covers it with butterfly bandages and some gauze.

"Dare I ask how this happened?" He murmurs as he presses down on the edges of the medical tape.

Hyeon turns around, and puts the borrowed shirt back on, his fingers fumbling a little on the buttons. "Let's just say that by tomorrow, you'll be harboring a fugitive in your living room."

"Ah," Joon Ho says. "Detective Yang?"

Hyeon grimaces. "Did you catch his case?"

"Yes, and I noticed the similarity of the wound. I'm assuming he got away?"

"Yes," Hyeon says, rubbing at his eyes. 

"Anything else you want to add?" Joon Ho asks, amused.

Hyeon shrugs. "I found the detective close to death, called 119 but knew it was too late. The guy was hiding in the closet and attacked me. He's about my height, but has a thinner build. He's a pretty good fighter, has had some training. I fought him in the dark, so I can't say any more, but he jumped off the balcony and walked, or should I say, limped away."

"Leaving you with your DNA all over the crime scene," the doctor finished for him. "Any reason you didn't bother waiting for the police?"

"Because I hate answering questions," Hyeon says.

Joon Ho laughs. "Aren't you a professor? I pity your students then."

Hyeon grins. "Well, are you going to turn me in, Dr. Lee?"

Joon Ho crosses his arms. "Why did you come here?"

"Following a whim," he answers. "And I need your help to solve the case."

Joon Ho shakes his head. "You're better off asking the actual detectives. Detective Cha Ji An, for one, would probably be delighted to help you out," he says with a smirk.

Hyeon makes a face. "I'd rather not. She's too... _needy._ " 

Joon Ho studies him for a long moment. "Then, if you're open to suggestions, there's another young man on the team. A Choi Eun-Bok. He's... occasionally been useful as a discreet source of information."

Hyeon studies him back. "Thank you."

"My pleasure," the doctor says. "And feel free to stay the night. There's a guest room down the hall. Have you eaten yet? I can make us some dinner."

\---

With Choi Eun-Bok's assistance, Hyeon finds the real perpetrator, a man whose father was wrongly imprisoned for the death of his mother and little sister. He drags the young detective with him to the prison to talk to the father, and on the way he meets a lawyer just coming back from an interview.

Although he gets the information he needs, and Detective Choi runs off to coordinate with his team, the presence of the lawyer bothers him. Hyeon asks around and finds out that he was sent by a judge, the same judge that presided over the father's case in court.

The police catch the kid just as he goes after that same judge. Afterwards, Hyeon arranges for an interview with the man.

"You covered it up, didn't you? You used the husband as a scapegoat so your informant can go free. And you can get praised for using his information to catch some bigwigs in the mafia."

The rotund man smiles at him indulgently. "It's all a matter of the greater good, isn't it? One man's sacrifice results in a lot more criminals off the streets."

_And what about the other lives damaged in the process?_ Hyeon thinks, but he says instead. "I want to see your brain." He basically calls him a psychopath to his face.

The judge doesn't even flinch. "Ah, but isn't it necessary sometimes? The same can be said for the case of Lee Joon Young. Did you ever wonder how we caught him in the first place? He never leaves bodies behind, but he was picked up on a house robbery charge."

Hyeon is taken aback. "Are you saying the police manufactured evidence against Lee Joon Young?"

"Your _father_ understood the necessity of such things," the judge says in a soft voice. "It's a pity you didn't inherit his farsightedness. He had strong feelings about how criminals should be treated. Though that might have been the result of his tragic loss. Tell me, Hyeon-ah, do you miss your mother still?"

That's the last thing Hyeon remembers. 

When he wakes up, he's in his room, freshly bathed, nails freshly cut. The clothes he was wearing is nowhere to be found. And the judge is never heard from again.

And a few days later, he receives a card in the mail. It features a painting of a clock, like an illustration in a children's book. And there are splotches of pink paint all over it.

Could it be from Min?

\---

Redeeming a favor from Na Bong Song is always an exercise in patience. But Hyeon's patience is rewarded when his friend gives him the name of a shipping company. He obtains a part-time job there as an excuse to snoop around. In so doing, he finds a body in one of the boxes, and calls it in. The cops are competent enough to catch the guy, though Hyeon is not one to hand out compliments like they're party favors.

He blusters his way into the room after the interview, turns off the cameras, and leans forward to watch the man's reaction. "You've done it before, haven't you? You've thrown other bodies into the river. Someone paid you to clean up after them. Who was it? You should give them up now and maybe we can cut you a deal."

But the man's pupils dilate and his breathing goes agitated and he refuses to talk.

Hyeon persists, trying to chip at that façade. "Tell me how many boxes you threw overboard. How many bodies did you throw away like they're garbage?"

The man's bracelet breaks, and the beads scatter on the floor. Hyeon counts them in a glance then looks back up to meet the man's terrified eyes. 

"That much, huh?" He whispers. "Did you see any of their faces? Did you see this man among them?" He asks again, sliding the picture of the missing judge across the table. The recognition in the man's expression is answer enough. Just then, the detectives charge into the room to drag Hyeon out.

Later he washes his face in the bathroom and tries to keep a hold on his temper. To come this close to Min, and yet having it lead nowhere, is the most frustration he has felt in years.

\---

Even though he has his suspicions about Dr. Lee Joon Ho, he feels unable to act upon them. Not without making sure that Min is safe. 

He examines the card with the painting of the clock. There is something about it that nags at him. He takes a picture and sends it to his assistant in New York, with the instructions to look through his papers for anything similar. 

In the meantime, he finally agrees to work with the police. Team Leader Kang is a fool, like a blind man leading a pack of vicious dogs over the cliff. They could really do with his help. But he stays out of Detective Cha's way. It's not easy, and he deliberately partners himself with Detective Choi to ward her off.

The cases are effective as a distraction. And he gets to know the young detective more. 

He's a nice enough kid, smart, with a sly sense of humor and a cool head under pressure. Sometimes, Hyeon whiles the time they spend on stake-outs imagining he is sitting beside Min. But Detective Choi is slightly older, and he looks nothing like Hyeon's dongsaeng. 

\---

His assistant sends him eleven other cards with a post-it saying that she had found them between the pages of his many notebooks throughout the years. Somehow, he had received them without knowing about it. Has Min been around all this time?

And then he realizes another significant fact. There were twelve beads on the man's bracelet.

Twelve cards for twelve beads for twelve bodies thrown into the river.

The cards all have a different design: purple flowers, a fire truck, a radio, a pack of crayons, and so on. Except for the last one, each card is accompanied by a crossword puzzle. But there's something peculiar about them. Hyeon soon figures that they're mirror images. Only half of each is solvable, and when he answers the questions, he comes up with names. Eleven of them.

When he hands them to Na Bong Song, he does so with reluctance. He's not sure he's ready to find out more.

\---

Traitors. 

That's what defines all eleven people. Twelve, if you consider that the judge betrayed the people's trust by convicting an innocent man. The rest of the names are people who have betrayed their parents, their wives, their comrades, their companies, and even their countries.

Hyeon tries to imagine what impetus is driving Min to kill these people. But he already knows. Min thinks _Hyeon_ betrayed him.

But the question is why?

\---

Further digging leads him nowhere. There is no trace of Min to be found. Hyeon finally comes to the one person who could give him a definite answer. 

Lee Joon Young.

He waits for Dr. Lee Joon Ho outside of the morgue. "Do you want to go for a drink?" He asks. "I haven't thanked you properly for letting me stay at your place."

"Alright. But only if you're paying," the doctor agrees with a smile. "It's been a long day, though so I would prefer if we do this at home. I have no desire to get drunk on the street."

They each take their separate cars, and Hyeon stops by a convenience store to buy soju and some snacks before continuing on. 

He walks into the doctor's house and is shown to the living room. Dr. Lee hands him a plate and a couple of glasses. Hyeon pours the man a glass and receives one in return.

"Your tip about Detective Choi is much appreciated. He's a lot smarter than the rest of his team," Hyeon remarks innocuously. 

"Yes, he is," the doctor says easily.

"How do you know him? He doesn't talk about you at all."

"I did tell you he was discreet," he reminds him. "I knew him before he entered the police academy."

"And before his parents died?" Hyeon asks as he downs a glass and pours another.

Dr. Lee Joon Ho smiles. _Are we really playing this game?_ "You could say that I watched over him like a fond father watches over his brood of children."

_Oh, I'm just getting started._ "That's interesting. Are you the type to collect strays, Dr. Lee?"

"Am I? Maybe like just calls to like." _I recognize you, you know._

"Do you see me as another one of your strays?" Hyeon asks, steel underlying his words. "Is that why you helped me out? I really dislike owing favors to people, you see."

"It's not like that at all," Joon Ho protests. "If I thought that you had really killed someone, I would of course consider it my duty to turn you in to the police."

It is such an out-and-out lie that Hyeon stops for a moment, rendered speechless by the other man's sheer nerve. This conversation suddenly leaves a bad taste in his mouth. "Why don't we cut the bullshit, Dr. Lee Joon Ho, or do you prefer Lee Joon Young?"

The man's eyes drill into his, and his mask slips for a second, long enough that the hair rises at the back of Hyeon's neck. "Whichever you prefer. You could even call me hyung if you wish."

Hyeon loses his temper at this indirect reference to Min. "Were you the one to send me that e-mail?"

"Yes," the man across from him answers him simply.

"And you put the painting in the crime scene," Hyeon says flatly. "Why?"

"I missed you," Lee Joon Young says. "I thought it would give you a reason to come back."

"Where did you get it?" His voice is none too steady now.

Joon Young smiles. "I have followed your work for a long time, Hyeon-ah. You could say I am your biggest fan."

"What are you talking about?" Hyeon asks, warning bells ringing in the back of his mind. "Just answer my question. Where did you get the painting?"

Lee Joon Young stands up and pulls an album from the shelf and hands it to him. "You gave them to me, of course. They're a little bit like love letters."

Hyeon accepts the album and opens it with trembling hands. In it are pictures of paintings: two-headed men, anatomical studies, portraits of corpses, empty houses surrounded by moonless night. And they are all signed with the eyes shaped like infinity.

"Don't you mean that _Min_ gave them to you?" He asks softly.

Lee Joon Young sighs. "I think you're old enough to be told the truth, Hyeon-ah. Min doesn't exist."

Hyeon stands up, the album falling from his fingers. "What?"

"You have always been an only child, Hyeon-ah." There is compassion in Lee Joon Young's eyes. 

Hyeon shakes his head, hands closed into fists. "No, that's not true. You stole Min and you raised him to be a killer just like you! It's all your fault!"

Lee Joon Young grabs his arms and pulls him close. "It was only you, Hyeon-ah. It was only ever you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I was able to walk the line between saying too little and saying too much. I actually started this story with the idea of a "Kill Me, Heal Me" AU with a little bit of "It's Okay, It's Love." So it's DID with a bit of schizophrenia. A very Hollywood treatment, and secretly inspired by an old Fear Street book by R.L. Stine I read over fifteen years ago. I hope I did not offend anyone with linking these mental diseases to the idea that Hyeon considers himself a monster. (And his father does, too.) Of course, there's also the fact that the Min part was exhibiting signs of psychopathic behaviour.
> 
> Please feel free to comment. :)


	3. Chapter 3

"It was only you, Hyeon-ah. It was only ever you."

Hyeon closes his eyes, grabbing hold of the other man, needing that anchor while everything falls to pieces. "No, no," he mutters. "That can't be true."

Joon Young senses that words are useless now, so instead he cups Hyeon's face in his hands and kiss him. It starts out chaste, but the younger man deepens it, his mouth opening hungrily, his hands sliding down Joon Young's chest then across his back.

Joon Young tastes the salt of tears. He tastes desperation, fear, loss, and he drinks it all in. The kiss works to calm down Hyeon's racing pulse, but when he tries to move away, the younger man wouldn't let him.

"Please," Hyeon says. "Please stay with me. Don't leave me alone."

That was it. That loneliness of Hyeon's was perhaps the seed that ultimately divided him in two. On that night over twenty years ago, he saw his mother die. Then he picked up a gun and shot the man who did it. That act was too much for one child to bear. So he forgot it as Hyeon, and Min was born as the part of him that remembers. The part that proclaimed to the world that his hyung protected him. So thus the burden of that act was divided as Hyeon was divided.

His father must have realized it immediately, and kept his son's dissociative episodes a secret from everyone else. A costly mistake. Hyeon could have undergone a number of treatments by now. DID treatments were often held to be useless, but Hyeon could have been the exception to the rule. _Of course,_ Lee Joon Young acknowledges, _I may have made a mistake in killing your father, too._

He had lost his temper that night after Professor Lee uttered those words. "You will never be able to see him. Nobody will be able to see him." His own incarceration was fresh in his mind when he grabbed for the knife. 

He should have taken Hyeon after. He knows that now. 

Back then, though, he was thinking to give Hyeon a chance to choose his own path. And he didn't want his presence to taint that. Park Joo Ah is right. No matter how good his intentions, he still gets it wrong.

But Joon Young is not given to guilt. So he moves from thought to action, wrapping Hyeon more tightly in his arms and nuzzling the side of his neck. Hyeon's pulse jumps there, and Joon Young laves it with his tongue, then his teeth. He feels Hyeon's cock now, nudging against his hip. 

It's not the right time. Hyeon is too raw, too needy, too overwhelmed to be thinking properly. And he had something else in mind for their first time, a grand seduction full of dead bodies and chains. It's a disappointment to have to abandon all that now. 

But Joon Young, as ever, adapts. 

The bed rocks and trembles under their bodies. Hyeon isn't thinking now. He's wide open, drinking in the sight of Joon Young above him, feasting on the scent and taste of the other man. The rhythm of their bodies coming together is punctuated by his own deep groans. Skin rubs against skin, until even that disappears between them, and he feels everything. 

When he comes, it is like a shout that travels through his limbs, an electric shock that erases all his thoughts and all his fears. His heart is too loud, and he gasps for air, but even so his hands reach for Joon Young, nails digging, grasping. His greed is never-ending. It swallows him whole. 

\---

He wakes up and there are limbs wrapped around him. It feels comfortable. Warmth and safety in a serial killer's arms. The incongruity of the thought makes him smile. He's tempted to stay longer, but still he carefully slides out from under them and stands by the bed. Lee Joon Young looks younger in sleep. His face is slack, his hair rumpled against the pillow. 

Hyeon walks naked to the bathroom. But he stops when he sees Min. With a trembling hand, he flicks open the switch. Min stares back at him from the other side of the mirror. Hyeon walks closer, and touches that face.

Min disappears. 

\---

Lee Joon Young only got the story third-hand. A stolen police report regarding his mother's murder. Tidbits from his father's notebooks. There are also the paintings, the cards, the puzzles with the names of missing people. That man with the bracelet, his face soaked in fear as he looks at Hyeon. 

Everything feels like bread crumbs. 

Hyeon is desperate for answers. And desperately afraid. 

He goes to his foster mother for a kind of independent confirmation of what Lee Joon Young has told him. He walks through the bullpen without a word, and comes to her office, locking the door behind him. 

Hyun Ji Soo regards him quizzically. "Hyeon-ah! Is there something you needed?"

Hyeon cannot be bothered with niceties. He takes the seat across from her and asks. "Tell me about my mother."

An expression of panic crosses her face. "Did you remember something?"

"Just fragments," Hyeon says. "I'm old enough to take the truth."

So in a halting voice, she tells him how it was. "I only got it secondhand myself. But the man forced himself into your house and killed your mother in the living room. He was someone that your father helped to convict, and so he wanted revenge. You were in your father's study and you must have known somehow that your father kept a gun in his bag. I don't know if he taught you how to use it, but you killed the man in one shot while he stood in the doorway. And then you erased the whole thing from your memory."

Hyeon is silent for a moment, before asking quietly. "Did you know that Min... That I just made him up?"

She looks taken aback for a second before she answers. "Your father never told me. But when you kept having nightmares of this Min, I talked to your doctor." Hyun Ji Soo reaches for his hand and clasps it in hers. "You were too young to be diagnosed effectively, Hyeon-ah. And after awhile, you stopped mentioning him, so we thought it could have been an after-effect of the PTSD, an imaginary friend that you latched onto. I told you he was dead so you would stop looking for someone who didn't exist."

He shouldn't feel so shocked, having already heard it twice, but it still feels like a physical blow. Hyeon takes a deep breath. 

"That's just what it is, isn't it?" Hyun Ji Soo asks tentatively. 

He nods, his mind already leaping ahead at the implications. "You were involved in the escape somehow, weren't you?" He starts, looking up into her eyes. "You lied to me about the report. Are you protecting Lee Joon Young for some reason?"

"No!" His foster mother denies, but in her flinch, he reads the truth. "I, I didn't know what he was planning, I swear. I just gave him some concessions in exchange for information."

"The first major arrests you made, and he handed it to you," Hyeon says flatly. "I checked the database. Lee Joon Young's fingerprints are missing from the system. More of your handiwork?" 

Hyun Ji Soo's silence damns her. Then she stands and reaches for a book on her shelf. She extracts a thin folder from its pages and hands it over to him. "I kept it, just in case," she says in a thin voice. 

But Hyeon refuses to touch it. "Destroy it," he says. 

She shakes her head. "Hyeon-ah. Why are you saying that?"

He leans towards her face. "So you'll never know if he's right beside you or if he's dead. You'll always wonder. That's your punishment, Officer Hyun Ji Soo."

Min's eyes look out from Hyeon's face, watching coldly as she covers her mouth, tears rolling down her cheeks. 

She shreds the file in front of him. It feels like a metaphor of their entire relationship, cut to pieces. "I'm sorry, Hyeon-ah. I really didn't mean for it to go this far."

"Silence is a choice, too," he says before turning his back to her and walking out.

\---

By the time he's back to himself, he's staring at Lee Joon Young's front door. Hyeon looks down at his hands, and imagines the blood that must have spilled on them. When the doctor opens the door, he walks past him, towards the living room, where he collapses on the chair like it's hard work just keeping his spine in place. 

"I have to turn myself in." 

"No. You will not," Joon Young immediately denies. "Neither you nor Min belong inside a jail cell. And Dissociative Identity Disorder will be extremely difficult to diagnose in someone standing on trial for murder." 

Hyeon covers his eyes with his hands. "So what do you suggest I do? Just pretend it never happened? Just pretend it can't possibly happen again?" 

He doesn't realize he's crying until he feels Joon Young's fingers swipe across his cheeks. "Trust me. I will take care of you. Of the two of you." 

\---

They prepare for it as best as they can, with no idea what triggers the change. And entire days pass with the waiting, and Hyeon goes stir-crazy, dragging him out to dinner and a movie. The prosaic nature of the date is a welcome distraction. 

Once they return home, Hyeon hangs up his coat and turns to Lee Joon Young, who takes a step towards him, and then tilts his head. "Ah, you must be Min. It's nice to finally meet you."

Min looks out from Hyeon's eyes. "Let's talk."

"About what?" Joon Young asks.

"About you and hyung. What do you want from him?"

\---

In some parts of the world, they would call this a demonic possession. That's the thought that passes through Joon Young's head as he continues his _negotiation._

"You will not take over while he's doing a lecture or grading papers. He needs a livelihood after all." 

Min rolls his eyes. "Whatever."

"And don't play with Detective Cha Ji An."

Min frowns. "Did hyung say that?"

"No. That's my rule." Lee Joon Young smiles. "She's mine. I'd appreciate it if you not interfere."

"Just keep her away from hyung, then," Min says, arms crossed over his chest. "I don't like her. She has sticky eyes."

Joon Young studies him. "Your hyung is wondering why you felt the need to kill some people and not others."

Min smiles at him derisively. "It's to punish hyung. For betraying me to you. He promised me he wouldn't tell anyone about what I did, but he told you."

Joon Young nods. "There will be no more killing, of course."

"Does the same apply to you?" Min asks acidly.

Joon Young raises an eyebrow but does not answer.

Min shrugs. "It doesn't matter anymore, since he already knows everything. But this conversation is a little one-sided, don't you think? What about what _I_ want?"

Joon Young leans back on his chair, stretching like a cat. "And what do you want?"

Min is silent for a moment before finally speaking. "I want everything that he's got."

"You'll have to be more specific than that, Min-ah."

"I want time, and I want money. And I want you."

Joon Young stands and walks to his side. He grabs Min's hair and pulls it back, baring his neck. "Well," he purrs. "That can be arranged."

\---

Hyeon dons the apron, looping it behind his back and tying it around his middle. Then he picks up the knife and dices the onion in quick motions. He tilts the board over the pan, letting the pieces drop. The oil is nice and hot, and soon the onion turns translucent. He pours the sauce from the jar, and stirs in some fresh herbs and spices. He starts another pot boiling for the pasta, dropping in a little oil and a pinch of salt. 

On the other side of the counter, the steaks are resting, covered in lemon wedges and salt and pepper.

Steak for Joon Young, and pasta for Min. 

Cooking is a task he enjoys on any given day. But it's always more special when he's cooking for family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I'm done. Taking a break from fanfic for now. (And reading romance novels instead...) 
> 
> This idea probably came to life while I was thinking up reasons for Min's obsession with two-headed men in his art.

**Author's Note:**

> Playlist can be found here: http://8tracks.com/oofstudio/monsters-in-the-mirror


End file.
